Commentary: A Spanish startup says its new bladeless wind turbine design is quieter, cheaper, and more efficient than conventional wind turbines -- and safer for birds. But do the company's claims stand up to scrutiny?

DRECP: As the government agencies drafting a massive plan to zone the California desert for energy development struggle to put a record number of public comments online, one comment in particular may cause the document's authors even more work.

Concentrating Solar: A test of a solar power tower project in Nevada resulted in injuries to over a hundred birds, the BLM is reporting, though the project's owners say they've fixed the problem since.

Commentary: A recent lawsuit raises a question that's beginning to be asked by any number of people watching the renewable energy industry: Why do we trust renewable energy companies to report on their own wildlife kills?

Commentary: A recent report by the Audubon Society underscores the dire future North American birds face if we don't act now to stem climate change. But that doesn't let industrial renewable energy facilities off the hook for harm they cause birds.

Commentary: What can a high-paid DC PR rep for dirty energy industries do to stem the increasing tide of climate realism and clean energy sanity? One such group has hit on an answer: make fun of celebrities.

Commentary: In the wake of a recent Associated Press story on bird deaths at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, controversy has arisen over the actual numbers of birds being killed at Ivanpah. We take a look at what's behind the wildly divergent numbers of those deaths being offered by environmentalists and Ivanpah's owners.

Commentary: Elon Musk's SolarCity, the Menlo Park-based solar panel leasing company, is buying Fremont-based solar panel manufacturer Silevo and will be building one of the world's largest solar panel factories in Buffalo, New York.

Concentrating Solar: The reported deaths at the solar power plant ebbed only slightly after peaking in April, and more than half of the carcasses showed signs of injury from the plant's concentrated solar energy.

Commentary: A state agency has turned down a request from the Sierra Club to become a formal legal party to proceedings regarding the proposed Palen Solar Electric Generating System in Riverside County. Here's why that matters.

Solar: In Mountain View Friday, Barack Obama announced a set of new executive actions the White House will be taking to promote the domestic solar industry and energy conservation programs. They include spending an additional $2 billion to make federal buildings more energy-efficient, providing funding for solar job training programs at community colleges across the country, and a campaign to put solar on tens of thousands more homes, including low-income housing.

Photovoltaic (PV): Five retired National Park Service Superintendents who spent a cumulative 35 years managing California's three desert National Parks are asking the Bureau of Land Management to move a 4,000-acre solar project they say would threaten the Mojave National Preserve's wildlife, views and groundwater.

Commentary: A 38-year veteran of the National Park Service who capped his career by spending three years running Joshua Tree National Park has come out against a solar project proposed for the central Mojave Desert in no uncertain terms.

Commentary: We're huge fans of NASA's Earth Observatory website here at ReWire, so it pains us to report that the site got something badly wrong on Sunday. The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System was not built "within Ivanpah Dry Lake," a.k.a "the playa." Here's why that mistake is important.

Commentary: California's second-largest county wants to designate almost ten percent of its land for renewable energy development, and a cultural protection group is taking up metaphorical arms against the core of the proposed policy. In doing so, it's turning NIMBYism on its head.

Commentary: Regardless of how individual press outlets reached their decisions on whether to include mention of solar flux wildlife injuries, it's strange and more than a little gratifying to see a story we broke here at ReWire grow wings and go worldwide.

Commentary: A couple of notable mentions of energy policy in the the President's State of the Union actually represent a departure of sorts from past policies, at least if you read between the lines. And just as notable, in the energy realm, were the things that went unmentioned.

Transportation: Transportation accounted for 37.6 percent of the state's greenhouse gas emissions in 2011, making our cars, trucks, SUVs, and semis the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state

Government: Revealing that his fight against prostate cancer has taken a turn for the worse, California Public Utilities Commissioner Mark J. Ferron resigned Thursday from his seat on the CPUC. In the process, he made a remarkable statement about the future of energy in California in which he had some startling things to say about both California utilities and the state's legislators.

Commentary: ReWire takes a look at the stories you thought were the most important, at least in terms of how many of you stopped by to read them. Here are the top ten most-visited stories for 2013, in ascending order of eyeballs.

Conservation: This gizmo could shrink our climate footprint without endangering wildlife, penalizing struggling ratepayers or requiring new, massive, and expensive infrastructure. In fact, widespread use of this technology could actually save the typical Californian a significant amount of money.

Commentary: Obama administration policy on development of renewable energy for the last six years has often been marked by intransigence against siting big solar and wind facilities on disturbed land rather than intact wildlife habitat. But a relatively obscure clause in a Presidential Memorandum issued Thursday may signal a change.

Commentary: In a long-anticipated move that has prompted howls of outrage from conservation groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced it will be extending the maximum length of the permits it's granting wind facility operators to injure or kill bald and golden eagles.

The Well Next Door: "In too many instances, the oil industry is essentially purchasing the results it wants," says Andrew Rosenberg of the Union for Concerned Scientists. One way to do that: funding university studies.

Commentary: The San Luis Valley in Colorado has been incredibly attractive to solar developers in the past, with at least three solar facilities already producing power and more on the drawing board. Why were there no takers?

Commentary: If you think the conflict between rooftop solar advocates and big utilities seems heated here in California, you ought to cast a glimpse at our exotic neighbor to the east, Arizona. This week, the story took an interesting turn, as Arizona's largest utility admitted it's been bankrolling some conservative groups' involvement in the issue.

Government: The ongoing shutdown of the Federal government has thrown a monkey wrench into public review of a large solar power plant proposed for the California desert, and there's no way to find out how the federal government plans to address the issue.

Commentary: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has, in effect, refused to enforce several wildlife protection laws against renewable energy companies, even as those companies' threats to wildlife have mounted.

Commentary: We made an error in our recent assessment of SB 4, the fracking regulation bill written by State Senator Fran Pavley that was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown September 20. Here's our correction on this technical, but important, aspect.

Commentary: The Palm Springs City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to hire a consultant to craft a city-wide solar plan, with the goal of generating at least 5 megawatts of power to offset energy use in the city's municipal buildings.

Commentary: A major transmission project now being considered by the BLM and other agencies could bring 3,000 megawatts of power from Wyoming to cities in California, Nevada, and Arizona, removing an obstacle to much greater expansion of wind turbines in Wyoming's eagle habitat.

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